Craniotomy procedures involve the creation of an opening in a patient's skull, in order to access the patient's brain. The closure of this opening typically involves replacing the bone flap, which was removed to create the opening, back into the opening. However, the need to preserve the bone flap may be problematic as the bone flap may have been fractured or otherwise damaged during removal and/or may not have been removed as a single piece. Any structural damage to the bone flap may compromise patient healing. Inadvertent contamination of the bone flap may also occur during the procedure, which, if not properly detected and treated, may lead to infection of the patient.
Further, craniectomy procedures typically do not involve preservation of the bone flap. Thus, it may be useful to provide a way to fabricate an artificial bone flap when it becomes desirable later to close the craniectomy opening.